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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Joy Cowley: Author Challenge

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm and several fun learning activities

Joy Cowley and illustrated by Elizabeth Fuller

This story is about a farmer's wife who loves to scrub and wash all of the farm animals. The cow, pig, and duck decided they don't want to be washed ever again so they take off to live in the city. The animals have some interesting experiences in the big city and decide to return back home on the farm. The animals in the end don't mind Mrs. Wishy-Washy giving them baths anymore.

Our Review: We enjoyed reading this book as a family. Elizabeth Fuller did an excellent job with all of the illustrations in the book. The animals really appear to come alive in the book with a lot of great facial expressions. If you're looking for a great book about animals on a farm this is the book for your family. I have read this book several times to the kids and they never get tired of it.

After reading this book, I made a sensory tub with dried pinto beans and small plastic farm animals for the kids to play with. The animals are playing around in the mud. The beans make it look like mud. The only bad thing about senseroy tubs is my kids always seem to make a huge mess with the beans.

Music time, My mom bought this John Deere Flannel set at a garage sale for the kids last year. We pulled it out to sing a couple of songs to go with the theme of the book. Old McDonald Had A Farm and The Farmer and The Dell. The kids took turns putting on or off the animals depending on which song we were singing. Also, I took the time to have the kids make all of the animal sounds for each felt piece animal.

Scissor time, I found this cute scissor cutting activity at Make Learning Fun which also has several different printouts if your looking for something different. The kids managed to cut, paste, and color her face. For the printout, click here.

Sciene Time, Before doing the next activity...I took the time to have the kids tell me the names of all the momma animals and what you call their babies. For example: A horse and it's baby is called Foal. Get the idea...The kids did a really good job on this activity.

Just like in the book...the farm animals get dirty and will need to be wash. I noticed this book really comes to life when you have the kids dressed up with head rags and aprons just like in the book. Make sure to have the pudding already mixed up to be able to make this activity fun for the kids. No to much fun having to seat around waiting for the pudding to set up.

Supplies:

* butterscoth or chocolate pudding instant mix* two plastic containers-one for washing and one for the dirt mix* Two aprons and head rags

* Small plastic farm animals

Directions:

I had two stations set up next to each other. One station had pudding for the animals to get dirty in and the other station was for washing. The kids took turns having fun either with getting their farm animals dirty or cleaning them up like Mrs. Wishy-Washy!

Overall, the kids had a blast on the farm. All of my ideas will work great for any under the age of five. Just look at the kids in the pictures. Fun, Fun, and lots of fun!

ABC-123 teaching blog is currently hosting a book giveaway for Joy Cowley books. Make sure to stop over at their blog and sign up for the drawing.